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The best travel apps to supercharge your phone

In this digital age, we don’t even try to live without our equipment. We all carry a smartphone, a laptop, an e reader, …At least I do! The multifunctionality of a smartphone is endless. With the right apps, you can supercharge your phone to which all guidebooks blush and kneel. New apps are developed every day, so if you know great apps that are not in the list, please let us know so we can add them. I’m always on the lookout for cool apps to try.

Journey

Journey is my favorite app for a long time. I started keeping a journal about a year ago and it is fun to scroll afterward. The app is designed for timelines. It also finds your location and current weather for you. You can write about your day or a specific activity, add up to four pictures and save it. Later you can browse entries by time, location or just look at the pictures chronologically. You can start adding stuff that happened before as well. I actually started with my birthday and added pictures as well. Then you can watch your photo timeline and see yourself grow up. I just love this app!

Trabee Pocket

I didn’t count how many budgeting apps I’ve tried… a lot! I fell in love with Trabee. It’s a hassle free app that does exactly what I need it to do: travel budget keeping.Set up your home country/currency and start creating your trip. It’s quite easy. Name the trip and add the countries/currencies you intend on visiting and start spending money. Adding expenses is easy and in the right currency straight away. You’ll end up with a nice overview of where your money went. I love this app because it has the features I need. A lot of other apps have the option to add your bank accounts and that doesn’t really work for me. I needed it to be simple and straightforward. I’m very happy that I found that. Unless a new superhero app pops up, I’ll be using Trabee Pocket. I even bought the pro version which allows you to edit your categories, which I thought was very useful. But you can use the free app and everything will work. You just have to use the categories they provide.

Easy Currency Converter

This free app converts every currency. You can save favorites for later reference so you can use them offline. It does what it should. I recently changed to this app after my previous favorite stopped being free. There’s not much to say about a currency app since you don’t want it to do anything else than converting currencies. In Easy Currency Converter, you can add favorite currencies of the countries you plan to travel to. You do need the internet to regularly update exchange currencies. But once you updated, you can convert while offline.

Airbnb

AirBnB is a great travel accommodation website for great local experiences and reasonable prices for rooms. The app is a great tool to find a place to sleep. It’s appealing and easy to use. You can rent a room, pay for it and chat with the owner from your phone. Airbnb prices are usually honest. The website has a lot of great listings in unique locations. I’m a big Airbnb fan and when we travel somewhere, I never book accommodation without having checked AirBnB. The mobile app is awesome and it might even be more convenient to use than the desktop version. We usually find and book a place on a computer and then only use the app to chat with the owner and get directions. If you’re not using Airbnb yet, you can use this link to make an account and get a discount on your first booking.

Booking.com

Booking.com is one of my favorite travel apps to find accommodation alongside with Airbnb. We used to use the Hostelworld app before, but all the hostels are in the Booking.com app as well. You can even choose to search only hostels or guesthouses or apartments. Prices are usually the same as in other apps, but occasionally you can get big discounts with this app. It works just as good as the web browser application and holds all your bookings and favorite accommodation in one place. You can get it for free in the Play Store.

Google Maps

Google maps is a well known and used app. There’s a reason for that. It is the best and most easy to use map app. You can use it to find places, see where you are and plan a route. Google maps can give you directions whether you’re traveling on foot, by bike, by car or by public transportation. It works well with other apps and if you find a good restaurant or bar, you can have Google Maps to get there. If you’re not using it yet, you can start right now. You can download it for free in Google Play.

Google Translate

Google translate is a decent app when it comes to translating. Translations aren’t always perfect, but they get the job done. A great thing about Google Translate is the possibility to use it offline. Just make sure you download the necessary languages for offline use. The app can even translate text from photos you take or you can have someone talking to it to get a translation. This app works like a charm and it keeps getting better.

The Traveler

Imagine yourself walking through a cool, major city, taking some photos along the way. You take a break to eat a delicious slice of pizza and continue your explorations. The next day you decide to find the same pizza place to eat lunch, but you don’t remember where it was. The Traveler is an awesome app to record your route. It doesn’t record all the time. You have to press the start recording button. The app also remembers where you take pictures, so you can look up what Cathedral or park you actually visited. I must tell you about the downside of this app. When you hit the record button and start mapping your walk, the app will drain your battery. I stopped using it for that reason. I’d rather have some smartphone juice to take pictures than logging where I’ve been. Whether or not it’s worth the battery drain, is up to you.

I’m liking the sound of the Journey app. So much lighter than taking my travel journal when we’re out and about! (And probably means that when I write up my travel journal it might be legible!) Great collection – thanks for sharing.

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